More Music Stuff

Well I guess it's a good thing this year is almost over. I'm having a hard time coming up with blog topics every week. I think that the area I have grown in the most this year is music. I've gotten better at piano, I've learned more about how to be a better singer, and I even started learning to play guitar. Playing guitar is my new favorite thing to do. It makes it so much easier to practice singing. When I sing with a guitar, I don't need a minus track because I'm making the background music myself. Also it's harder to get off key when you can hear exactly what key you should be singing in.

Another fun part about playing guitar is that I've started writing my own music. I used to try to do that with the piano, but I wasn't really good enough to write my own accompaniment. With guitar I just find a chord sequence I like, play it for a little while, and then start coming up with a tune that goes along with it. Once I have that, I start writing the words and changing things up so it all works together.

Playing guitar is one of the things I've always wanted to learn how to do, so I feel pretty good knowing that I'm accomplishing one of my goals. Guitar is fun, helps me get better musically, and I think it's making my fingers stronger too. My fingertips are all calloused now. For my term project in choir I played guitar and sang, and it was pretty cool being able to get a whole song done. My one problem is that I have extra small fingers, so for certain kinds of chords I have a hard time getting my fingers to reach them. Overall though, I think I'm learning a lot and I feel like I'm getting it pretty good.

I think that I've also grown a lot in singing this year. There are a lot of different parts to singing, i.e. the pitch, tone quality, breath support, dynamics, vibrato, etc. I feel like this year during my singing lessons and in choir I've learned a lot more about how to use all these different parts to become a better singer. Before this year, I just sang because I liked to, and all I cared about was that I was hitting the right notes. Now, I realize that singing is more than that. You have to use all the different elements to express whatever message you're trying to get across in your song. To emphasize certain parts you could make it louder or softer, or sing it with a different tone. I never realized how much you could express through music before this year.

I think that music is definitely the area I've grown in the most this year. I've learned more about it, and (hopefully) gotten better. I know I've definitely had a lot more experience and opportunities to get better this year. I'm planning on keeping it all going next year in high school in Lace (choir) and the musical. I'm really excited that I'll have more chances to do what I love.